£10m to develop new AI tools for predicting risk of cancer
22 January 2025
A new research programme will support doctors with early detection and prevention of cancer, through AI-driven data analysis.
Earlier diagnosis of cancer saves lives. However, only 54.4% of cancers in England are currently diagnosed at stages one and two, where treatment is more likely to be successful.
Today, Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) announced an exciting research project that could enable doctors to better predict and prevent cancer.
Supported by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and partners, the Cancer Data-Driven Detection (CD3) programme will receive £10 million to create new tools using AI and state-of-the-art analytics that will help scientists accurately predict who is most likely to get cancer.
Vast quantities of secure data will be harnessed to improve the detection and diagnosis of cancer at its earliest stages. The programme aims to access and link data from different sources –such as health records, genomics, family history, demographics, environmental, and behavioural data – to develop advanced statistical models and powerful AI data analysis tools, which will help identify an individual’s risk of cancer throughout their lifetime.
Over the next five years, the funding will support the programme to build the infrastructure required to access and link health-related datasets, train new data scientists, create the algorithms behind the risk models, and evaluate the algorithms and AI tools to ensure that they are giving accurate and clinically useful information about cancer risk. The scientific programme will be guided by partnerships with cancer patients, the public, clinical experts and industry, while addressing ethical and legal considerations to ensure that the models and tools work well in practice.
Professor Antonis Antoniou, Director of the Cancer Data Driven Detection programme and Professor of Cancer Risk Prediction at the University of Cambridge, said:
“Finding people at the highest risk of developing cancer, including those with vague symptoms, is a major challenge. The UK’s strengths in population-scale data resources, combined with advanced analytical tools like AI, offer tremendous opportunities to link disparate datasets and uncover clues that could lead to earlier detection, diagnosis, and prevention of more cancers.
“The Cancer Data Driven Detection programme will build the partnerships and infrastructure needed to make data-driven cancer early detection, diagnosis and prevention a routine part of frontline healthcare. Ultimately, it could inform public health policy and empower individuals and their healthcare providers to make shared decisions. By understanding individual cancer risks, people can take proactive steps to stop cancer before it gets worse or even begins in the first place.”
NHS England has set a target to diagnose 75% of cancers at stages one and two by 2028, and this will only be achieved with research and embracing new technologies to catch cancer earlier. The models generated from this research could be used to help people at higher risk of cancer in different ways. For example, the NHS could offer more frequent cancer screening sessions or screening at a younger age to those at higher risk, whilst those at lower risk could be spared unnecessary tests. People identified as higher risk could also be sent for cancer testing faster when they go to their GP with possible cancer signs or symptoms. Individuals at higher risk could also access different ways to prevent cancer.
Lara Edwards, Chief Data Officer of the Cancer Data Driven Detection programme, and Programme Director at HDR UK said:
“CD3 brings together a UK wide, multidisciplinary community of internationally recognised leaders in the data science and advanced analytics fields, including numerous members across the HDR UK community. The Programme is aligned with the HDR UK mission to ‘unite the UK’s health data to enable discoveries that improve peoples’ lives’, and provides a compelling opportunity to transform discovery, access and use of data from different sources to improve understanding of the mechanisms, causes, detection, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of cancer.
“The programme will create a lasting legacy and impact on cancer data driven detection, delivering and assembling national scale ‘research ready’ data assets, creating ‘data foundations’ that will continue to enable discoveries beyond the life of the programme”
The CD3 programme is jointly supported by Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health & Care Research, the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, Health Data Research UK, and Administrative Data Research UK.